Russia at war 1941-1945

exception of Sebastopol, where three solid defence lines, ten miles in depth, had been organised. All enemy attempts to storm the naval base failed and under the command of Vice-Admiral Oktiabrsky and General Petrov the beleaguered fortress held out until July 1942. In underground workshops, more or less immune to the continuous bombing and

shelling, Sebastopol made many of its own arms and ammunition. In November and

December alone, it made 400 minethrowers, 20,000 hand-grenades, and 32,000 anti-

personnel mines, repaired numerous guns, machine-guns, and even tanks. At that time

52,000 men were defending Sebastopol, and for eight months they succeeded in tying up large German and Rumanian forces which, in the Russian view, would otherwise have

been used to invade the Caucasus across the Kerch Straits.

Though thrown back from Rostov and held at Sebastopol, the Germans could still claim to have caused not only grievous military, but also immense economic damage to the

Russians in the south.

The Russians' plight in the north was even more tragic. Except for a slender life-line across Lake Ladoga, the blockade of Leningrad had been complete by September 8, with the German capture of Schlüsselburg; on November 9, even the Ladoga gap was made

almost unusable after the Germans had captured Tikhvin on the main railway line to the south-east of the lake. Leningrad seemed finally condemned to starvation, and it was not till December 9 that Tikhvin was recaptured, and the future began to look a little less desperate. It is rather remarkable that, at the very height of the Battle of Moscow, the High Command should have been able to spare enough troops to recapture both Rostov

and Tikhvin—even though these had obviously been looked upon as merely minimal

objectives, which could not be followed up by either a recapture of the Donbas, or a major breach in the Leningrad blockade. For, at the time, Russia was not only short of trained soldiers, but also desperately short of arms. And, above all, it was clear that the Germans' Number-One target was still the capture of Moscow, despite the failure of their all-out October offensive.

Everything, by the beginning of November, tended to show that the Germans were

preparing for another all-out attack, and were concentrating heavy forces not only west, but also north-west and south-west of Moscow. The failure of the first offensive had given the Soviet High Command just enough time to assemble large strategic reserves

behind Moscow, and to strengthen their front line in all sectors.

The fact that Moscow was not captured in October had had an enormously salutary effect on the soldiers' morale. Some significance is today attached to the eagerness with which soldiers and officers were joining the Party and the Komsomol; within a month (October to November) the number of Party members in the three army groups outside Moscow

rose from 33,000 to 51,000, and of Komsomol members from 59,000 to 78,000; it was at this stage in particular that the policy was adopted of admitting to the Party, with the minimum of formalities, almost any soldier who had distinguished himself in battle; the identification of Party and Country was at its height. Or rather, the Party adapted itself, as best it could, to the nationalist spirit of resistance.

After the failure of the first German onslaught on Moscow civilian morale improved also.

The evacuation of Moscow had continued right through October and the first half of

November; about half the population had gone, as well as a large part of the industry: thus, out of 75,000 metal-cutting lathes, only 21,000 remained in Moscow, whose

industries were now concentrating chiefly on the manufacture of small arms,

ammunition, and the repair of tanks and motor vehicles. The Moscow sky was dotted

with barrage balloons, and there were anti-tank obstacles in most of the main streets, and a great many anti-aircraft batteries. These were far more numerous than before, and

firewatching rules had become even stricter; thousands of Muscovites were engaged in fire-watching. The atmosphere was austere, military and heroic—very different from

what it had been at the time of the panic exodus.

Although there was the general conviction that Moscow would not now be lost, the

seriousness of the coming second offensive was not underrated. As was to be expected the Germans achieved considerable superiority in a number of places. Their first big blows fell on November 16 in the Kalinin-Volokolamsk sector of the front where they

had three times more tanks and twice as many guns as the Russians. By November 22

they had broken into Klin north of Moscow and in the west to Istra, the point nearest to Moscow they were ever to reach in force. It was no doubt from Istra that German

generals later remembered that they "could look at Moscow through a pair of good field-glasses". Istra is some fifteen miles west of Moscow.